


A Different Kind of Cure

by user_name



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Dark Fantasy, Disturbing Themes, Fairy Do Kyungsoo | D.O, Fantasy, Kidnapping, M/M, Romance, Sexual Tension, Trapped, Virus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:55:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23294347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/user_name/pseuds/user_name
Summary: Jongin is a promising young fairy hunter. He becomes renowned for his skill as word of his first successful hunt spreads throughout the town like the winter sickness creeping into children's beds.They don't know that Jongin had found the fairy huddled alone, pale and naked behind a dead oak. Trembling. It did not run.They say a fairy can heal even the oldest man of his pain. As the sickness spreads, the townspeople become increasingly desperate for a piece of it.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongin | Kai
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	1. Found

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: disturbing themes

Jongin ran his fingers through the feathers of his quiver. He could smell the fear through the trees. Crisp. Bloody. Like biting through an apple as he watched Sehun lick the shining skull of his first hunt. The sky was white and the sun was in hiding, covered by a thick grey fog that seeped through undershirts and dried out lungs. 

Jongin stopped. His hunting team stopped. Jongin stood stock-still and angled his head, listening. 

Something whistled past his ear to thunk into the branch beside his head. He didn’t flinch. Beside him, Chanyeol’s eyes were bugging out. “Fuck,” he swore under his breath. Jongin ignored him in favor of yanking out the red quill, shot clean through the bark as easy as cork. Jongin grimaced as he pocketed the quill. _Ah, so that’s how it wants to play._

The nose-biting chill in the air made it all the more important that they didn’t let this one go to waste. The change to winter was taking a toll; even their healer Suho had woken up feverish today. Soon, the freeze would overtake everything. Jongin slowed to a silent prowl, then faster, the sounds of scuffling in the trees ahead motivating him to move through the brush like liquid. It had left a trail of blood in the frozen earth—red, blurred blobs of bloody prints dragged through the ice like twins to Jongin’s own. 

Chen and Slav followed. Chanyeol was bumbling about even further behind. “Here pretty pretty,” Slav called. 

Chen shot him a warning glare. Jongin knew that look. It might be injured but the last thing they needed was for it to be scared enough to take off on foot. A single hair could pay for horse feed for a year, a nail two years unlimited drinks at the ale pub, a tear—well, priceless. 

Chanyeol had asked him yesterday, came up to him quietly after sword practice in the privacy of the courtyard. “Jongin, is it true? If you capture one, is-is the whole v-village saved from disease?” The way he looked down at his feet and fumbled his words infuriated Jongin. How he could be so tall and look so weak Jongin didn’t know. What was he so scared of? “You don’t know?” Chanyeol had asked, eyes wide. Jongin had thought Chanyeol read his mind until he realized he hadn’t answered the question. Instead of replying, Jongin shook his head and stalked away. The last man to see one in the wild was Chen, and Chen had the scars to prove it. Fanciful what-ifs were just that; what-ifs.

A rustle in the leaves broke Jongin out of his reverie. There, behind that tall oak, no more than ten paces away. His eyes narrowed. He could see it clearly now; a slight figure peeking out, a slim shoulder white against the sky. It was pale and shivering, huddled at the twisted base. _Strange._ It should have flown away by now. 

But no matter. Jongin felt a rush of cold air swirl into his lungs as he breathed in and aimed. Time slowed to allow him the clarity to set his arrow steady. Around him, red leaves drifted down like feathers, worm-bitten with holes. Beside him, Chanyeol tensed.

Then, a moment of softness. He saw the flit of an orange eye, as wide and startled as it was human. _Why doesn’t it run?_ Jongin frowned. He reached for his bow but hesitated. Beside him, Chen drew his bow and Jongin felt the string tense, quivering, ready. 

In a heartbeat, Jongin grabbed Chen’s arm and fit his other hand over the tip of the arrowhead. “No, stop. Not this one.” Chen gave him a side-eye but didn't throw him off either. He stayed behind as Jongin moved closer still. Still, the fairy did not move. 

Jongin was close now, close enough to see each individual eyelash curved against the smooth skin, close enough to touch. 

“Jongin,” Chen called behind him in warning.

“This one’s special,” Jongin breathed, crouching down to brush a finger against one soft cheek. It felt like flan, impossibly smooth. A tear rolled down as his finger stroked its face. It was naked, sitting with its knees to its chest. Jongin’s eyes traveled from the pale neck to the curve of the spine to the translucent dragonfly wings folded across its back. One was bent at a strange angle, speckled a mottled brown at the edges. Its hands were curled into fists in the snow. Lying next to its slender wrist was a bloodied porcupine quill, the arrowhead tipped with dart frog poison as red as the soles of its feet, which looked blistered and raw under the glare of the cold wintry sun and left trails of red in the snow. Jongin didn’t know how long he knelt there. All he knew was that all of a sudden the rest of the men were here, gawking and sniffing and grasping their bows. 

Chen knelt down to smile cruelly at it. “You didn’t have to stop me, I wouldn’t have killed it,” he laughed, tipping the fairy’s head back with a finger under its chin, looking it in the eyes. The fairy met him with a dead stare. A challenge. “A live fairy fetches a much higher price.” 

Without thinking, Jongin slapped Chen’s hand away. He was desperate to touch the soft skin under that round jaw, the squishy softness of the junction between the neck and the chin, that pulsing jugular vein carrying blood to the head. He ended up with his fingers under the fairy’s chin, staring into its eyes.

Slav reached out a thick grubby hand, but Chen grabbed him by the shoulder with thinly veiled force before he could touch. “Ah-ah-ah,” he said, waggling his finger. “I think that’s enough grabby hands for now. None of us know what spells it could cast on us.” 

Slav ignored him. “Would you look at that,” he breathed. “Jongin, you might be the first man to ever touch a live fairy.” 

Chanyeol fidgeted uncomfortably. Jongin noticed he was hard in his pants. 

As if noticing Jongin’s death glare at his crotch, Chanyeol rubbed the back of his neck and said, “M-maybe we should head back, we can p-preserve the blood tracks and search the branches for hairs while they’re still fresh.”

Jongin looked down at the fairy. He was still grasping it by the chin and it seemed to relax into Jongin’s touch a little more. So Jongin sent the three men off.

“Sure you’ll be fine?” Chen asked.

“I can handle it.”

Once they were out of earshot, Jongin deftly tied the fairy’s wings together and made quick work of its wrists. He wasn’t sure if it spoke English, but whispered, “I don’t want to hurt you,” anyways.

The fairy made a sound that sounded like a snort. Jongin thought it funny but ignored it. _Wrap around twice, back over, around the line, and back. Perfect._

He stood back to admire his handiwork and realized that he didn’t know what he was going to do with it, actually. It was _his_ fairy now. He could sell it, but maybe it would be best to wait for its wing to heal and fetch a better price that way. And besides, there was something… _precious_ about the fairy. Maybe it would look good draped against his couch.

So he brought it home.


	2. Daylight

It was late. Long, finger-like shadows reached in through the windows of Jongin’s cabin by the time he trudged through the doorway, shivering fairy in tow. 

Jongin shoved the door shut behind him. It didn’t budge until he kicked his boot at it. Damn that door, it always stuck. “Home sweet home,” he sighed.

The fairy watched Jongin with wide eyes as he stripped to change into his pajamas. It stared with no shame. It reminded Jongin of the white doe he had seen last spring, chewing grass in a sunny clearing with her fawns. Jongin’s eyes glazed over as he remembered.

“Why’s it look like that?” Nico had asked.

“Must be one of them albinos,” Slav grunted, drawing his bow. “They’re easy pickings.”

Chanyeol’s eyes bugged out. “No, wait, I heard they’re protected by fairies.” He stuck a protective hand out against Nyguard’s chest, as if that would do anything.

Nyguard had just shrugged and shot the deer anyway. The recoil was particularly strong that time; the butt of the gun (he bragged he’d stolen it from a cart in the city) struck him in the nose, hard enough to bleed. But no matter; the limp deer was enough fresh kill to feed the entire village. The white flesh was tender and delicious. The next morning, every man, woman, and child in the village woke up to runny stools.

Jongin realized he had been staring into the fairy’s eyes for a beat too long. He cleared his throat. “You’re not going to do any funny business, are you? I’m going to untie you.” He’d have to remember to tie it back up before he left tomorrow, but for now the fairy should sleep comfortably.

The fairy shook its head. _Loop, unravel, twist._ Jongin untied its arms, digging his thumbnail into the knot to pull it apart. He tried not to touch the fairy’s skin; its smooth, hairless arms felt strangely intimate. The rope fell to the floor. The fairy rubbed its wrists and curled into itself immediately. It sank into a corner of the room, where Jongin had set his reading cushion, and sat there naked, curled around the pillow, its wings fanned out like a blanket.

“Do you want a nightgown?”

The fairy blinked. Jongin threw it a large undershirt. It made no move to put it on. Jongin scratched his nose. “So...I’m gonna go to sleep now.” 

The fairy just stared. Maybe it was just Jongin’s imagination, but its eyes seemed almost luminous, like that of a raccoon. Maybe it was less so mythical and more so a wild creature. 

Jongin sank into bed and watched those green eyes the way he would when Suho had brought an old color box into his office. He’d said he’d gotten it from the city, but remained intentionally vague about where the city was, or how he’d got it. It showed images of various animals and people on its small colored window until the images flickered and faded darker and darker and eventually died.

Jongin studied the fairy’s eyes until his breathing slowed and vision blurred and they melted and morphed into a river, which turned into an owl, and then an eye, and then a single green pea on a plate, and from above the owl could see the heads of a million hungry people gathered around a table, their mouths opened to feast. The first person to eat turned green and vomited and the vomit spread down the table like a stream and soon everyone was vomiting a river. Pea soup.

Jongin woke up to the sun in his eyes. He blinked, blinded. The fairy’s wings were reflecting sunlight from the window into his eyes like a mirror. It looked peaceful in the sun, the dust motes around its little body floating like sparkles, a dance of sprites.

“I think I dreamt about you,” Jongin blurted, before realizing it was still asleep. It barely stirred. Jongin sighed back into his pillow and stared at the ceiling for a while, examining the pattern of partial rainbows the fairy’s wings reflected across the roof, the way they moved slightly with every breath it took. Somehow, Jongin didn’t know what to feel. Nothing felt quite real. 

He shook his head. Enough of that. It was time for breakfast.

***

The fairy woke to an empty cabin. He stood up, stretched, and wandered out into the campsite butt naked but for a shirt slung across his back. It smelled smoky like the archery boy and it kept his wings hidden and warm. 

Under the thatched roof shelter in the center of the campsite was a sun wrinkled woman known by everyone in the village as “Mama Gabby,” stirring a giant pot of the community soup. The fairy’s nose and growling stomach led him straight to her. 

Her eyes widened to comical proportions. She screeched like a crow and dropped her spoon. “Who are you, boy? Have some decency!” 

The fairy’s heart jumped at the way her harsh mouth opened and shut like a leather bag. He had never seen such a mouth before. Shocked, he took off and ran, melting into the forested area behind the shelter and slipping back into the archer’s cabin, where he slammed the door shut, triple checked the locks, and burrowed into bed. He inhaled and exhaled, felt his racing heart slow to a calmer beat. It was warm in here, like a feather-lined tree burrow. Outside, the sky was lightening with the chirping of birds. A whole new day was ahead of him. He’d be ok.

**Author's Note:**

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